New Zealand’s ambassador to the United Kingdom has been recalled after the diplomat publicly questioned United States President Donald Trump’s understanding of the events that precipitated World War II.

The office of New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said that High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Phil Goff’s position was “untenable” following his remarks during a panel discussion in London.

Speaking at a Chatham House event, Goff compared Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine with the 1938 Munich Agreement that allowed Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia.

“I was re-reading Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons in 1938 after the Munich Agreement, and he turned to Chamberlain, he said, ‘You had the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, yet you will have war,’” Goff said during a Q&A session, referring to former UK Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain.

His comments came after Trump paused military aid to Kyiv following a heated exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last week.

Peters said Mr Goff’s views did not represent those of the New Zealand government.

“When you are in that position you represent the government and the policies of the day, you’re not able to free think, you are the face of New Zealand,” local media reported Peters saying.

“It’s not the way you behave as the front face of a country, diplomatically,” he said, adding that he would have taken the same course of action no matter which country was being spoken about.

Mr Goff is a veteran politician was appointed high commissioner since January 2023. Before that, he served for two terms as mayor of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, and was leader of the Labour Party from 2008 to 2011. He had also held several ministerial portfolios, including justice, foreign affairs and defence.

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark was among those who criticised Mr Goff’s sacking, saying it was backed by a “very thin excuse”.

“I have been at Munich Security Conference recently where many draw parallels between Munich 1938 and US actions now,” she wrote in a post on X.

Under the 1938 Munich Agreement, Hitler took control of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. The deal failed to stop Nazi Germany from advancing deeper into Europe and World War Two began when he invaded Poland in 1939.